Bariloche, El Bolson and Puerto Madryn

Hola, I see we have some catching up to do…  When we last left you , we had just arrived in Bariloche.  Bariloche, Argentina is in Patagonia and one of the most beautiful places I, Elisa, have seen in my life.   Much like a Swiss village and any ski resort in Colorado.  The area around Bariloche was formed by glaciers and it is surrounded by beautiful blue glacial lakes.  We spent our time, taking in one of Time Magazines top five most beautiful views in the world at the top of a local hill, then hiking to one of ten most expensive hotels in South America, Llao llao.  It was all gorgeous and we topped off our stay by going to a reggae bar over looking the lake at night.  Good times.

 

We went to El Bolson for two days, which is suposed to be the hippie defect capital.  Honestly, it was quite boring and we spent most of our time in our double room (!) with own tv (!) and bathroom (!),  I also taught KP to crochet.  Immediate family members: expect scarves and hats for Christmas.

After two uneventful days we went to Puerto Madryn.  Puerto Madryn is on the East coast of Argentina and Northern Patagonia.  There, I did two scuba dives, one at a wreck at 25 meters and on a reef for 8 meters.  If was nice since its been over two years since my last dive.  We also were able to see whales from a dock only a couple blocks from our hostel and were one block from the beach.  Honestly, where else can you have near beachfront accomodations for 12 dollars a night with breakfast included?  KP also went on a penguin tour; Mom, shes has plenty of pics to show you.  More on that I am sure.  ciao!

(This is Kristen)  I went to the second largest penguin reserve in the world, aside from Antarctica.  There were over 200,000 mating couples in Punta Tombo and each of them had two eggs, so when the penguins hatch there will be nearly 1,000,000 penguins!  If we were there two weeks from now there would have been fluffy little babies all over the place!  It was amazing.  As far as you could see there were nests and little penguins walking all over the place.  From there we went to Rawson to look for dolphins.  We were on a boat that was pretty low to the water and ended up seeing a Right whale as soon as we hit open water.  The whale was massive and it came right up to the boat and was swimming around under us.  I could have nearly touched it from my seat!!!  We then went out further to look for the world´s smallest dolpin.  We found a few and they were so cute.  they were black and white and extremely quick.  On the way back we saw a few more whales and that was definately the highlight of the trip! (KP) 

E

Mendoza

Last week, we went to Mendoza, Argentina.  Mendoza is known for their tons of vineyards and wine making.  Of course this needed further exploration on our part.  We heard from some fellow travelers about a place to rents bikes in the Maipu wineries called Mr. Hugo´s.  I, Elisa, had to get the only bright green kids bike available.  I´m even to short in Argentina for adult sizes. 

Anyway, we went met a dutch couple and rode to a museum with them.  We got some free wine and the tour was boring.  We split up and rode about 6.5 kms to an olive oil factory thing, expecting lots of samples.  We were starving and there weren´t any.  Instead, I got a bag of dried tomatos and Kristen got pickles.  Things were not looking good.

We went to a vineyard after called Carnea.  The wine was ok.  Sidebar, Mendoza wineries makes mostly red wines, so I can´t say I was particularly impressed with any, but we tried a total of 7 or 8 all day.  We rode up the road to another vineyard, di Tomasso, and wisely skipped the tour and tasting, opting to just buy a bottle and drink it.  It was a lovely vineryard and winery, with cask tables set up out side.  We then road to a chocolate and liquor place.  We tried different liquors and chocolate and its too bad it wasn´t later int he trip, because then I might have had something to bring home for my mom.

We returned our bikes to Mr. Hugo´s and ended up staying there talking with other travelers or 3 hours.  It shoudl be noted we went to Mr. Hugo´s because we had heard he gives you bottomless wine when you return the bikes.  This is not just myth, its a reality.

On Wednesday, we went on a trekking and rapelling excursion.  We have both come to the realisation that trekking is not fun at all and really hard.  Luckily, that part only lasted an hour.  We then rapelled from 3 heights of 7, 14 and 45 meters.  It wasn´t to scary, I don´t think becaus eI had to wait to go last all times and by the time it was my turn to go I was so bored from waiting that any fears up to that point had subsided.  It was a good day though.  We went to a thermal springs water park in the afternoon, which was really nice.

There were two american girls there, both blonde and from arizona.  One also shall we say was augmented.  They must never see blond people with plastic surgery in Mendoza often cause all the preteen girls in the pool surrounded the blondes for the whole time and taking pictures with them.  I think the Argentinians thought they were Hiltons.  They probably thought so a little bit too.

We are in Patagonia now.  More on that to come….

 

Elisa

Defying death by bunk bed in Chile and para-gliding

We will start with the more boring and less funny of the two stories.  Para-glidng over Iquique was quite amazing.  I was absolutely terrified to do it but I wanted to conquer my fear.  This outing didn’t require me signing a document which said they were not liable for my death either so it actually must have a low fatality rate.   I wish I had thought of that before I went.  The night before Itossed and turned and could barely sleep because I was so anxious!  Another guy from the hostel had decided to do it as welll as he explained that it was much safer than white water rafting.  He thought rafting was crazy.  Anyway,  at 10 am the little van picked us up from the hostel and it was full.  A few visiting pilots who were going solo including a woman from san diego and the instructors.  I was nearly shaking.  When we got up to the take off spot (500 meters up) I was jumping up and down to try to release nervous energy.  I watched closely as a few people took off ahead of myself and the other guy.  My tandem pilot had been doing it for 14 years and that made me feel better.  I got starpped in and was only held to the pilot by  two straps and some carabiners.  He prepared the parachute and it grabbed the air and we lifted off then went back down then lifted again and one more time we ran towards the edgo of the cliff and took off into the blue morning sky.  We reached heights of over 600 meters.  THere was a strong thermal wind that lifted us to the top of the mountain.  About 8 para-gliders in all in the sky cruising above below and all around us.  We were cruising at the same pace as the birds that were right next to us.  I recaived a miniature history lesson while in the air as we soared over the tall building of the city.  We can down about 25-30 minutes after gliding over the ocean and then a nice soft landing on the beach.  It was quite an experience.  I did feeel  a little woozy after but it cleared up in a couple hours.

Ok, now for how I defied death by a bunk bed today.  ELisa and I were taking some post breakfast naps and I was just waking up and Elisa turned over and her entire bunk bed fell on top of me.  The bracket had given out and I was pinned under the bed.  Quite an alarming way to wake up.  I told her if she wanted to be on the bottom bunk she could have just told me!  There are nicer ways of going about things than dropping a bed and frame on someone.  We were both pretty startled but made a good  lot of jokes about it.  It seems we cannot leave a city without having an encounter with death or serious bodily harm.  I luckily sustained no injuries other than a scratch on my toe.  When one of the handymen came in he asked what we did with the rest of the bed because he didn’t even realize that it had completely fallen!  All is well though.  WE switched rooms and we get free breakfast tomorrow.  Assuming the same thing doesn’t happen in this next bunk bed and I may not be so lucky this time to wake up for breakfast!!!

Miles of beach

Hola everyone!  Long time, no posts.  We’re sorry.  That’s because we have been doing a lot of, well, nothing.  After leaving Puno, we had a much more sedate trip back into Chile to the Northern beach town of Iquique.  The weather up there was very strange, being very sunni early in the morning, then becoming quite overcast by 2 or 3.  That did not deter us from some much needed beach time.  The water was artic cold, which is too bad because we wanted to do a little wave jumping but on some days we managed to get waste deep before sprinting out.

Iquique would be a nice tourist city if they cleaned up all the drunks on the street- 7 days a week, 24 hours a day- and all the mangey dogs.  Can’t say we have ever seen so many strays in one place.  I don’t think they have a South American Bob Barker encouraging you to spay and nueter. 

Along with beach activities, tanning, reading and such, we managed to locate the local McDonalds, which has now become our haven in strange new places.  Aside from tanning and walkind, we didn’t do too much.  Oh Kristen did jump off cliff, more on that later.

It should be noted some interesting people we met at the hostel:  A Australian family is traveling with two kids under 12 for 5 months, which is crazy in and of itself.  However, their son had this chesty throaty whoopng cough that was kind of his way of announcing his enterance or identifying his whereabouts at any time.  Not only was he a little strange, but he would sit down randomly and different tables with people fromt he hostel, but then he’d cough all over their stuff.  Gag.  We also hung out with two south african boys with hedge funds.  If only we had had more time together…..

Elisa